Touch Me, Your Majesty.

The scaffold stood in the center of the tribunal square beneath a sky the color of old pewter, its dark timbers wet from a morning drizzle that had left the palace stones shining. Water gathered along the edge of the execution platform and fell in slow drops beside the condemned man’s boots. Rilen Vos could not have been more than twenty. He wore the plain charcoal livery of a palace servant, though someone had removed the silver fastening pins from his collar before bringing him out. Iron cuffs bound his wrists. A chain ran between them and disappeared into the fist of the guard behind him. Each time Rilen’s knees weakened, the guard jerked him upright. From the elevated royal platform overlooking the square, Darius Vaelcorin watched the boy struggle to keep his footing. No one near the king moved. The courtiers had arranged themselves with the practiced care of people accustomed to calculating distance. There were no marked boundaries around Darius’s chair, no painted lines on the stone, but thirteen years had taught the palace a geometry of its own. Ministers stood farther from him than they stood from one another. Guards positioned themselves where a stumble could not carry them into his path. Even the clerk holding the execution warrant had extended the document on a narrow silver tray rather than place it directly into Darius’s hand. Darius took the parchment by its edge. The clerk withdrew so quickly that the tray struck his own belt buckle. A small metallic sound rang through the quiet. Darius did not look at him. His attention remained on the warrant. The accusations occupied half a page. Theft of royal property. Unauthorized entry into the treasury archive. Possession of three restricted seals used to authenticate Crown correspondence. The evidence had been discovered beneath a loose floorboard in Rilen’s quarters after an unnamed report prompted a search. Two witnesses had seen him near the archive corridor on the previous night. The seals had been wrapped in a strip of treasury inventory cloth. Everything was in its proper place. That was what bothered Darius. People stole badly. They panicked. They hid objects where desperation suggested, contradicted themselves under questioning, left mud where they should have wiped their boots or remembered one lie and forgot another. Yet whoever had constructed the case against Rilen had supplied evidence for every question before anyone had thought to ask it. Darius folded the warrant once. Below, the executioner placed a hand on Rilen’s shoulder and guided him toward the block. “Stop.” Darius did not raise his voice. He did not need to. The executioner froze with one hand still resting on the condemned man. The murmur beyond the tribunal gates died almost at once. Even the ravens perched along the western battlement seemed loud against the sudden quiet. General Tavik Rhos stood several paces to Darius’s right, broad-shouldered in a dark military coat, one hand resting near the pommel of his sword. His gaze moved from Rilen to the warrant in Darius’s hand. “Something wrong?” “Several things.” Darius rose. The court shifted. It was subtle enough that another man might not have noticed. A sleeve brushing backward. A boot turning outward. One noblewoman drawing her skirts closer to her ankles so there would be no chance of trailing fabric catching against him as he passed. Darius noticed all of it. He descended the broad tribunal steps. The whispers began only after he had crossed the first landing. Kings did not descend to condemned servants. Darius continued until his boots met the square. Rilen stared at him. The terror on the young man’s face changed. Until that moment, he had been afraid of the scaffold. Now his gaze dropped to Darius’s uncovered hands. His lips parted. Darius stopped well beyond arm’s reach. “Remove his chains.” The guard holding Rilen’s lead hesitated. Darius turned his head. The man paled. “Your Majesty, the prisoner—” “Has spent the morning surrounded by armed men and appears barely capable of remaining upright. If you require iron to protect yourself from him, I have overestimated the palace guard.” Tavik’s mouth tightened at the corner. The guard lowered his eyes. “Yes, Your Majesty.” He unlocked the cuffs. The chain came free with a heavy clatter, leaving angry red grooves around Rilen’s wrists. Rilen rubbed neither of them. His hands remained close against his stomach. Darius watched that, too. “Look at me.” Rilen obeyed. His face was narrow beneath wet brown hair. He had bitten the inside of his cheek hard enough that a small smear of blood darkened one corner of his mouth. “You entered the treasury archive last night,” Darius said. “No, Your Majesty.” “Two witnesses saw you in the corridor.” “I crossed the east passage after supper. I was taking linen to the old accounts room. I never went inside the archive.” “You knew the restricted seals were kept there.” Rilen swallowed. “Everyone who works the upper offices knows.” “Everyone?” A pause. Rilen’s eyes shifted toward the officials standing near the scaffold. “There are lists,” he said carefully. “Inventory rotations. Cleaning assignments. Some of us dust the cabinets. Under supervision.” “And yet you stole three seals, wrapped them in treasury cloth, carried them back through the servants’ passages and concealed them beneath your own floorboard.” Rilen’s face tightened. “I did not.” “An inventive thief might have hidden them beyond the walls. A frightened thief might have thrown them into the river. A foolish thief might have sold them before the theft was noticed.” Darius tilted his head. “You chose instead to keep them beneath the bed in which you sleep.” “I never saw them before the guards pulled them out.” Darius studied him. The boy’s fear had not lessened, but he met Darius’s gaze when denying the theft. His attention wandered only when the seals were mentioned, darting toward the officials as though still trying to understand how they had come to be in his quarters. “Who knew which room was yours?” Rilen blinked. “Your Majesty?” “Your room. Who knew where you slept?” “I share the servants’ west barracks. Anyone assigned there would know. Kitchen staff. Treasury runners. Laundresses. Guards sometimes.” “Did anyone ask you to exchange rooms recently?” Rilen stared at him for a moment. “Three nights ago.” Tavik came one step nearer, stopping at the safe distance he had kept from Darius for years. Darius did not look back. “Who?” “A man from treasury records. I did not know his name. He said there was damp beneath the wall in his quarters and asked whether I would trade until the stone dried. I told him no.” “Could you identify him?” “I think so.” Darius unfolded the warrant again. An unnamed report. Two conveniently placed witnesses. Three seals arranged beneath a floorboard in a room whose occupant someone had recently attempted to displace. The case had ceased to be perfect. It had become neat. Darius disliked neat crimes. He turned toward the presiding magistrate. “Suspend the sentence.” A visible shudder passed through Rilen. The magistrate straightened. “Your Majesty, the seals were recovered in his possession.” “They were recovered beneath a piece of wood.” “The distinction—” “Is the difference between evidence and geography.” The magistrate’s mouth closed. Darius held out the execution warrant. No one moved to take it from him. For a moment the parchment remained suspended between king and court. Darius’s jaw tightened. He let it fall. It landed on the wet stone. “Rilen Vos is remanded to royal inquiry and released from sentence pending investigation. Search the treasury offices. Identify every person with access to the seals and every servant reassigned within the western barracks during the last month.” Rilen stared as though he had failed to understand the words. “You are not going to die today,” Darius said. The boy’s knees buckled. A strangled laugh escaped him before he caught it with both hands. He sank halfway toward the stones, tears suddenly bright across his face. “Thank you. Your Majesty, I swear to you, I swear I never—” Movement flickered behind him. The execution guard glanced upward. Not toward Tavik. Not toward the magistrate. Toward the palace. Darius followed the movement of the man’s eyes and caught a pale distortion in one of the high tribunal windows overlooking the square, a figure standing behind the rain-streaked glass. Then the guard drove both hands into Rilen’s back. The servant pitched forward. Darius moved before thought could stop him. His hand closed around Rilen’s wrist. Bare skin met bare skin. The square became still. Rilen stopped falling. Darius held him. One heartbeat passed. The boy stared at him. A second followed. Nothing happened. Darius’s fingers tightened by a fraction. The world narrowed to the living warmth beneath his palm. A third heartbeat passed. Rilen was still standing. Something broke across Darius’s face before he could contain it. His lips parted. His eyes dropped to their joined hands. Thirteen years. For three heartbeats, thirteen years became a possibility rather than a sentence. Then a thin line of red slipped from Rilen’s left nostril. Darius saw it reach the boy’s upper lip. “No.” Rilen’s pupils widened. His fingers spasmed. Darius released him, but the servant’s body had already begun to convulse. Rilen struck the stones on one knee, then his shoulder, his heels scraping violently against the wet pavement. Blood ran from his nose in two dark streams. “Ovrien!” Tavik shouted. Darius dropped beside Rilen. His hand stopped above the boy’s chest. He could not put it down. Rilen’s eyes found him once. There was no accusation in them because there was scarcely anything left in them at all. His mouth opened on a shallow, broken sound. His body jerked once more and slackened. Darius remained kneeling. Rainwater soaked through the knee of his black trousers. Around him stood physicians, soldiers, magistrates and servants. No one approached. They were waiting for him to move away. Darius looked at Rilen’s face. Minutes earlier the boy had been crying from relief. “Help him.” The royal physician was already descending the tribunal steps, gloved hands clutching a long brass case, but even Ovrien Sareth stopped several feet away. Darius looked up. Ovrien’s expression did not change. It did not need to. Darius rose and stepped back. Only then did they rush forward. Hands touched Rilen everywhere. Ovrien’s gloved fingers found his throat. A guard supported his head. Another man rolled him onto his back. Someone wiped blood from his mouth with a folded cloth. Darius stood beyond them with his arms at his sides and watched strangers give the dead boy every ordinary touch he had been denied while alive. His left hand flexed once. Then his gaze lifted toward the guard who had pushed Rilen. The man was backing away. “Tavik.” The general had already seen him. “Take him.” Two soldiers seized the guard by the arms. The man struggled once. His eyes darted toward the same high palace window. It was empty now. Darius crossed the square, stopping before the prisoner. “Who was at that window?” The guard’s face had gone gray. “Who ordered you to push him?” His jaw moved. Darius saw the motion. “Open his mouth.” Tavik lunged forward. Too late. The guard bit down. A faint crack sounded between his teeth. His body stiffened. Foam appeared along his lower lip. One of the soldiers holding him cursed and nearly dropped him as the man convulsed. Within seconds, he sagged between them, his face darkening as poison closed whatever answer had been hidden behind his tongue. Darius watched until the guard stopped moving. Then he looked up at the palace windows. Hundreds of panes stared back through the rain. Somewhere behind one of them, someone had watched to see whether his touch could still kill. Darius turned to Tavik. His voice came quiet enough that the men nearest them leaned closer to hear it. “Seal Astergrave.” Tavik’s expression hardened. “No one leaves?” “No one.” “And the city gates?” “Double the watch. Close the river stairs and the mortuary passages. I want every person who stood duty in this square identified before sunset, every chamber overlooking the tribunal searched, and every change to today’s execution order placed in Ysorien Vale’s hands.” Tavik glanced toward Rilen’s body. “You think this was arranged.” Darius looked at the wet stone where the discarded warrant had begun to dissolve at the edges. “I think,” he said, “someone wanted to know if I was still dangerous.” Above them, deep inside Astergrave Citadel, a door closed.